Among the companies eager to deploy a commercial self-driving vehicle service, Cruise has one of the most aggressive timelines.
GM Cruise LLC has reportedly announced that it has raised $1.15 billion in new equity from investors including Honda, T. Rowe Price Associates and, SoftBank Vision Fund. The parent company of GM Cruise, General Motors, has pushed to start a commercial autonomous ride-hailing service this year.
Reportedly, the investment will increase post-money valuation of Cruise to $19 billion, inclusive of previously announced investment commitment of SoftBank. Capital commitments worth $7.25 billion have been secured by Cruise in the past year, cited reliable sources.
Dan Ammann, CEO, Cruise, reportedly stated that development and deployment of self-driving vehicles at large scale is the engineering challenge of today’s generation. A critical competitive advantage is to have deep resources to draw as the company pursues its mission, he further added.
Among the companies eager to deploy a commercial self-driving vehicle service, Cruise has one of the most aggressive timelines. The self-driving unit of GM has stuck to its earlier stated timeline to roll out a commercial service sometime in the year 2019.
From a small startup with 40 employees, Cruise has grown to have more than 1,000 employees today at its San Francisco headquarters. Cruise is thriving to accelerate that rate of growth.
In November, Cruise has reportedly announced its plans to expand to Seattle, in pursuit of more engineering talent for developing its technology.
GM Cruise has aimed to employ 100-200 engineers by the end of 2019. Ammann has plans to hire at least 1,000 more engineers and other personnel by the end of the year.
GM Cruise has been expanding the office space in San Francisco to accommodate the growth. The company will continue to keep its headquarter at 1201 Bryant Street in San Francisco. It will also take over the headquarters of Dropbox at 333 Brannan Street by this year. This move of Cruise will triple its office space in San Francisco.
Source Credit: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/gm-cruise-raises-1-5b-at-a-19b-valuation-from-softbank-and-honda/
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/07/gm-cruise-autonomous-vehicle-unit-raises-1point15-billion.html
